


Virtual Vigilantism

by sinisterkid92



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU, F/M, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5833147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinisterkid92/pseuds/sinisterkid92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity Smoak took the fall when her boyfriend erased student loans 5 years ago. To everyone but a few people she died back then. In reality she is living a boring and isolated life helping the FBI catch terrorists. Then she is tasked with finding The Hood, but instead of bringing him to justice she finds herself sympathizing with him.</p><p>Or: the story of how Felicity Smoak became Oliver Queen’s sidekick instead of doing her job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virtual Vigilantism

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Arrow fandom! This is my 3rd story for Arrow, but the first one I'm posting under this username. This story took a very different turn from what I had originally planned, but I like it! I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it. It takes place in a universe where Cooper used Felicity's computer to wipe out the student loans, and Felicity being Felicity... Here you have it!

It was more glamorous on TV. FBI that was. Or any cop show in general had more excitement than Felicity had grown accustomed to as a special agent. As a kid she would’ve probably passed out had she known she would grow up to become an agent, but back when the opportunity was handed to her it was less than appealing. But the other option was unfathomable to her five years earlier when the FBI had stormed into her dorm room in the early hours, arresting her wearing only her boyfriend’s t-shirt. 

She wasn’t really a special agent, either. Not even an agent. But in her own head she had promoted herself above the babysitters, lord knew that she had solved far more crimes than any of them could manage together in the past 5 years. It was the ankle bracelet that had her cornered in as a consultant. It put a damper on any plans of having a career in the FBI.

The bracelet was more symbolic though. They all knew she could hack it during a bathroom break, or a few moment’s alone time. 5 years of babysitting is what that resulted in. There was always an agent sitting on the couch outside of her bedroom, following her wherever she went. Even into the bathroom. Over the years she had taken a closer liking to Agents Frank Brian and Kevin Dudas — nicknamed Duddy — because they could, and would, never go into the women’s bathroom.

Sure, never being alone had its perks. Since to the world she was dead there was no way she could call her mother and talk to her, or reconnect with old friends if she wanted to (she didn’t). A constant companion to talk to, or at depending on the agent, was nice to have. 

She knew how to take advantage of their presence. There was no need for her to remember to take tampons with her anywhere, because every agent assigned to her knew that she always forgot and had to carry them. The male agents would at first act disgusted at needing to line their inner pockets with tampons, but they were desensitized rather quickly. It made new meat all the more fun for Felicity. 

But, even consultant jobs were more fun and glamorous on TV. In reality she was on her 3rd cup of coffee and it was only 10am, and she was losing the game of solitaire she was paying only one eye on. The algorithm she had created was sorting through security camera feeds and geotagged photos and videos that could be found via the net throughout the north eastern coast to find the location of a domestic terrorist. While the computer was fast it had to sort through images in real time simultaneously as it sorted through old footage to find the current location, or to at least manage to establish a timeline of how the suspect moved. As soon as it identified the suspect it would give out an alert to the entire task force, and that was when she would have to resume her work.

Until that happened she drank coffee.

”Smoak,” Agent Brian said, drawing her attention from the spot on the ceiling she had been staring at for the past 15 minutes. ”How many cups have you had?” He shook his head as he took the cup out of her hands.

”Three,” she answered, putting her feet up on the desk. The metal of the bracelet clanked harshly against the plexiglass surface. 

”Do you need to pee?” She did, but she figured that she could last another five or ten minutes, and the day was boring enough that annoying him would be the best way, and probably only way, for her to have some fun.

”Nope,” she said with a popping of her lips. Five minutes later she announced her need to pee, far beyond embarrassed by her bodily functions at this point around them. They’d seen her through stomach bugs so needing to pee was nothing. Brian grumbled. He knew exactly what she was doing, and it was immensely satisfying knowing that she had gotten to him. 

”You do know that I have other things to do besides babysitting you,” he commented when she exited the bathroom. 

”I know, and I really think you should set up a date with Maria, she seems to like you.” She walked ahead of him before his face turned red with embarrassment. 

While she rarely commented on it everyone around her knew that she regularly hacked their computers to look at what they were doing. Some were more interesting than others, and Brian was one of them. The Match dot com profile he created was one of her favorite things to lurk, especially since Brian was awful at most things that involved women and often had catastrophic failures even in written conversations.While it was a breach of conduct and a breach of the agreement she had made with the bureau, and would be written in her file, it was so minor that at this point no one bothered with it. If she hacked into confidential files, however, that would’ve been an entirely different story. 

”How can you tell?” Brian asked an hour later, sitting on her desk and blocking her view of the TV show she was streaming on one of the screens. 

”She does the wink emoji a lot.” She switched windows on the computer and pulled up the program that was still sorting through video feeds. ”Excessively really,” she muttered under her breath. 

”And that means she likes me?” He crossed his arms over his chest as his eyebrows knitted together as if he was pondering over a particularly difficult brain teaser that he would read in the paper every morning.

”It’s the wink emoji, a wink face, you do it when you’re flirting and like being cheeky, if she uses the wink emoji that much she’s either incapable of carrying on a conversation without excessive uses of emojis, which you should’ve noticed by now because she’d send you the poo one, or the dancing woman, or even the one with the hair-flip. She’s not doing that, so it’s an educated guess that she wants to meet you, but is waiting for you to take the next step. She seems like the traditional type — don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think girls who aren’t traditional would be that into you.” The lack of fresh air was what put a stop to her rambling. 

”That’s good to know, and err… thanks, you sure know how to compliment a guy Smoak.” 

”No problem - oh.” A signal went off on her computer where a pop-up screen of a live-feed video in a convenience store was pulled up. A short-statured man was purchasing cigarettes, and it was no question about where the man was located. 

”Do you have a location?” He pulled up his phone prepared to call the closest office. 

”Just outside of Morristown, New Jersey… I’ll send the New York office the coordinates.” She rapidly typed on the keyboard, the smattering of the keys pulling her focus in and away from the other sounds in the office. This is what made it all worthwhile, the rush of doing what she did best. She sent an error message to the card machine that the convenience store used, declining the card, and locking the cashier so that the suspect couldn’t pay cash. It wasn’t the most challenging thing she had done, but the freedom to be creative was enough to make her day. 

The error messages she sent the machines bought the local police department enough time to get to the store to apprehend the suspect for the FBI, and with that arresting a key member of a domestic terrorist group. It would set them back months, and buy the FBI time to locate the rest of the group. 

This meant that, for now, her involvement in the case was over. She was only involved when absolutely necessary, being a criminal and all. Though she would remind them on several occasions that she was never actually convicted of the crime she was suspected of (but of course, she did it) when they needed an attitude check. Most often it was used on the new ones, and over the past 5 years there had been quite a few people who had passed through. Some left because of quote what they called chemistry clashes. Others because they were promoted, or needed elsewhere in the bureau. 

”I think I deserve a glass of wine to celebrate, actually… a bottle of wine.” She glanced over her shoulder towards where Agent Brian and and an impressively tall Agent Janet Spielberg were talking. She liked Agent Spielberg, not only was she a woman but also jewish, and while they weren’t even close to being friends they had come to a mutual understanding of each other. If she had to have someone sitting on the couch outside of her bedroom she preferred it to be Spielberg 

”It’s Tuesday, Smoak,” Spielberg deadpanned, arching an eyebrow at Felicity. 

”And I would care if… no, I don’t actually. I caught a terrorist Janet… Frank.” She blinked her eyes innocently in their direction, adding a pout for the extra effect. ”I did capture a terrorist you know, and I am 24. If you’re gonna make me live like this for the entirety of my partying years I should at least be allowed to get drunk if I want to.” 

”You’re a felon, Smoak, think of it as a part of your sentencing,” Spielberg said. Felicity tutted, shaking her head and holding up a finger.

”Technically I’m not since there was-”

”… no trial you are not a felon.” Spielberg finished the sentence like she was a child being reprimanded. 

”See, you’re starting to get it now.” She patted her on the shoulder. ”Brian should know which wine I want.” She jabbed her thumb in the direction of Brian whose eyes rolled so far back in exasperation that Felicity knew it must’ve hurt. Felicity appreciated the dedicated eye rolling the most, it showed a person’s conviction of how done they were with the situation. 

Felicity was a lightweight. Whether that had to do with her small size, or that she rarely drank alcohol. To her mother’s confusion Felicity did not drink as a teen, and when Felicity was old enough to drink she was already under FBIs watchful eyes. It wasn’t as fun as she suspected unsupervised drinking with friends would be. Though as she turned 25 and celebrated half a decade as dead, and passing 30% of her expected lifespan, the hangover was less burdensome than soberness. She kept track of her drinking, but it wasn’t like the FBI would allow her to develop an addiction. 

As long as her skills were needed she mattered to them. It did her best not to think about what would happen when she was discarded of. Would there even be an opportunity for her to return to her mother? The mother she led to believe that her own daughter, Felicity, was dead because at 20 Felicity had no idea about her options. The deal was lucrative, it would help her mother in so many ways. Not taking the deal wasn’t an option. The trial would have ruined their lives. Her mother would be labeled as the terrorist’s mother. 

Which was why she held the bottle up in the air, foregoing the wine glass that sat on her nightstand, and saluted her mother. The bottle was past half empty, and the world had taken on fuzzy edges that she quite enjoyed. From the other side of the door she could hear a talk show host hold his opening dialogue and the stifled snigger from Spielberg. Her movements were sloppier, and the bottle slammed harshly against her teeth as she went to take another chug from it. 

Somehow her memories seemed to gain clarity in the fog of drunkenness. It was the happy memories that appeared. Her mother’s smiling face catching young Felicity and pulling her off of the ground and into a bear hug. Using her mother’s hip as a pillow while marathoning John Hughes movies into early morning ingesting unhealthy amounts of ice cream. 

Despite it all Felicity couldn’t say her life had been a bad life. It had its bad points, but there had been so much good that she wouldn’t dare to claim that she had pulled a losing number at the lottery of life. So she refused to succumb to her own misery and wallowing, but she had her days when she missed her old life so much it felt as if she was about to combust into pieces. The claustrophobia was the worst. The suffocation of having freedom dangled in front of her everyday, just there but unattainable. 

It was why she stopped watching TV, because the illusion of being a part of the world they showed on there was maddening. She walked down the street, she went to the grocery store, and to any outsider she was just like anyone else. But she couldn’t call her family, she couldn’t go online, she didn’t own a phone. The only people she was able to talk to were the babysitters, and a selected few analysts and co-workers. 

”You look miserable,” Agent Duddy sniggered as he placed a large cup of coffee on the desk beside her. Usually Felicity would put on make-up in the morning. It was something that made her feel good about herself, and somewhat put-together. This morning the red wine from the night before had bested her, and she had decided to sleep in, and let the dark circles and greenish pale face be free for the day. 

”Then I look as I feel.” She reached for the cup and gulped the hot liquid down before even checking the temperature. ”Aspirin?” 

”You already got it,” Brian spoke up from his desk several feet away. 

”Right now I would welcome internal bleeding just so my head would stop pounding.” She sprawled herself out on the desk, pressing her forehead against the cool surface. 

”You’ll get another dose in 3 hours,” Duddy assured her with a pat on the back. ”But right now, you’ve got a new assignment.” She twisted her head towards the file that Duddy had placed next to her on the desk. It was a thin one. Most files that landed on her desk were inches thick with dead-end leads, but this one didn’t even reach half an inch in thickness. 

”What is it?” She opened up the file to a photo that had been brightened to the point where the photo quality had been greatly compromised. It was of a man whose face was concealed by a green hood, and he was aiming his bow and arrow at something or someone that wasn’t shown in the picture. 

”A vigilante in Starling City, they call him The Hood, he’s been murdering and assaulting people all over the city, and his latest target was a US senator visiting the city.” Duddy provided her with a photo of an aging man with a hairline that had receded so far back that it had almost disappeared from the top of his head. ”Which put him on our list.”

”How long has he been going after people?” She scanned the names of victims of The Hood, and despite the thinness of his file the list was impressive. 

”The first sighting of him was by Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlin back in 2012.” He flipped the pages over to the police report the two men had made at that time.

”So he’s been out there for two years killing people and on one has caught him?” She skimmed the report but found nothing incriminating, or anything standing out in it. In actual fact it was lacking a lot of information that an eyewitness should’ve been able to provide with. 

”He’s very good, we suspect he may have been a former agent, or military at least. But no agency, no one really, can tell us who he is…” He shut the file. ”Your job is to scrub all media footage, find any connections you can between this vigilante and his victims, anything that can tell us who he is and what he wants.”

”And what if he just wants to see the city burn?” Felicity threw over her shoulder as Duddy started to walk away, already logging into her computer to start work. 

”If that is what he wants then we want to know that.” 

Though the physical copies of the files were on her desk she preferred the digital copies. She pulled them up from the folder that had been sent to her, and gave them a once-over to get a hang of what she was looking for. She pulled the grainy picture of the guy up on one screen. 

”Please don’t want the city to burn, Hood guy, because I’m tired of nihilistic assholes just looking to destroy things. Or worse, extremist assholes just looking to destroy things.” He looked strong, his muscles tense. There was something about him that Felicity couldn’t quite consolidate with acts of terrorism for the sake of destruction. The anger that was so obviously there seemed more purposeful, personal in a way politics and religion never were, that she couldn’t help but to feel for his cause. 

The green hood, the bow and arrow, and the most common type of target made him seem more like a modern day Robin Hood rather than a murderous vigilante terrorist. Though to her recollection Robin Hood never went after people who weren’t rich. The Hood did, occasionally, go after people who weren’t a part of the 1 percenters, but statistically he could contend for the title of being the 21st century Robin Hood. But just as everyone else she hadn’t figured out his end-game yet. 

Extorsion seemed to be his go-to tactic. Not always by demanding monetary compensation to those that had been wronged, sometimes the admission of wrong doings were enough. What motivated him was hidden beneath layers of history that could only be revealed once the Hood had been unmasked. But the key to unmasking him was in understanding who he was. 

The question was if she wanted to find him or not. She looked around the office at the people charged with babysitting her and wondered how none of them had considered that this was a bad idea. What the Hood was doing wasn’t far off of what she was here for. Sure, he took it one step further and killed people, but she deleted thousands of people’s student loans. In actuality it was her boyfriend who did it, she was the one to stop him before he had deleted everyone’s loans. But it was her virus, and it was her computer that deleted the loans. She was the one to pay the price for it. 

So, while she never murdered anyone to her knowledge (maybe someone got fired, and someone killed themselves over it… but she didn’t want to think about that, it wasn’t good for sleep), she did something radical to change something. If she had protected herself better she would’ve deleted it all. If she could’ve assured that there would’ve been no digital footprints left she would’ve let him delete every single loan. 

This man had found a way to delete his footprint, to be invisible in a city where every police officer was against him. He had done what she couldn’t do. He got in, and he got out, making a difference without being caught. Now she was the one tasked with changing that. 

It wasn’t so clear-cut anymore. Right or wrong wasn’t about a bomb going off in a shopping mall. It was about a man whose methods were wrong, but is end-goal seemed pure. 

Felicity was forced to pose the question to herself: does the end justify the means? Or conversely, does the means justify the end? Could she follow the law completely and use that as justification to end something that could quite possibly be good?

One thing Felicity knew about the Hood after cross-referencing his targets was that none of them were good, and those that weren’t criminals were shady individuals. Most probably every single one of them was guilty of horrible crimes against people. The senator was no different. But Felicity wasn’t there to judge, or to decide who they were going after. She was to do what she was told.

This time, however, she wanted to know more before she did anything. Before she revealed anything to her babysitters. One afternoon with the Hood and she knew that simple was gone. He was doing what she went away for. She thought that all she wanted was to get out, to be free and to be with her mother again.

But the Hood flipped everything on its axis. If he was what she felt in his bones that he was then she was prepared to go down for him. 

Until she was sure she had to stay low, she knew that. He could turn out to be a horrible person set on destroying the city, the country, or even the world. Right now she had nothing but a gut feeling that she was going to like this guy. The brutality she could do without, sure, but there was a lot to be admired in him. Something she had been too chicken to do herself. 

So she stalled. She knew by now that she had gained enough trust that they wouldn’t monitor every part of her work, and that she could get around and create an encryption that they wouldn’t be able to monitor unless they discovered it and managed to hack it. Just in case they discovered it she created a diversion so that they would be mislead to another program that she fed information that made it look like she had done work there. There was only so much she could do as the babysitters walked past occasionally, but she hoped it was enough. This was for when she found him. If she found him. 

Just like they had told her the Hood seemed to have training of some sort. He was a ghost. The algorithm she created was fed one piece of information that was incorrect, which would slow it down immensely and probably end up with nothing at all. If it was discovered it could be seen as an honest mistake. It wouldn’t be the first time, and she did have her hangover to blame. 

The real program wasn’t much faster. She couldn’t feed it too much information because the diversion of data from the main algorithm would draw suspicions. She could only let it use up as much as a game would, because it happened that she played something as she waited for results.

It all needed to be calculated and hidden behind her normal routine. Anything out of the ordinary would raise flags, and she didn’t need any flags to be raised now. 

For three days she ran the information. The program she fed the false algorithm to occasionally pinged with probable results to Felicity’s delight. It kept the agents preoccupied with investigating leads, and confused enough to not pay her much mind. The false leads managed to provide her with more information about the Hood that she could feed into the one that ran the true information. She couldn’t overload it with too much information, and she kept a watchful eye on the data usage of the ghost program. 

Then on the third day she started it up again, and she found him. At first she was tempted to dismiss it. One part of the information that it had been fed was the wrongful arrest of Oliver Queen. The result was undeniable, though. According to the program she ran it was Oliver Queen that was the Hood. Height, build, skin color was a perfect match. Oliver Queen’s known locations and the time it took for the Hood to arrive at a specific location matched up, and when it didn’t it matched up with an old Queen Consolidated building, now turned club by Oliver Queen. There were too many matches for it to be a coincidence. Many targets, and mostly the ones the Hood chose to protect, were closely linked to Oliver Queen. And it matched. When Oliver Queen returned from 5 years on an island — wow, Felicity thought, that explains a lot about his choice of weapon and murderous streak — was when the Hood first started to appear. 

Everything was there. From his school grades to his arrest record. With a few steps she could hack into the computer he was using and mirror his screen. Which, of course, she did. The office was nearly vacant because the agents had taken off to non-Hood related bust. The only one who was left was Duddy, who was preoccupied with the game scores. He was probably waiting for that winning bet that would buy him that car he had been eyeing for months. She had done the calculations and even if he did win then he wouldn’t win near enough to cover the cost of the car. 

She looked over at Duddy to make sure he was where she thought he was. She enjoyed the predictability of Duddy, he liked his routines, and he liked his vices. With him she always knew where she was and what was going to happen. Duddy, Spielberg, and Brian all had their good sides, it was why they stayed with her. She got along with them, they got along with her. Everything went more smooth when there was mutual respect. 

Soon Oliver Queen’s desktop was a mess. It took all she could to stop herself from sorting out the chaos. Today she was only looking, getting to know him. If he wasn’t what she thought he was she would find him officially. If he was what she thought he was… she hadn’t thought that far yet. There wasn’t enough data activity to point to him using the computer for advanced things. Most of it was accessing the odd security cameras and researching targets. She had to hand it to him that the research was meticulous. He didn’t just find his targets, he got to know them to the degree that he knew where they would run and hide. 

It was sloppy, she had to say that. But there was still something beautifully structured about it. The longer she looked through his desktop the more she understood. It all led back to the Glades, the poorer district in Starling City. She remembered the broadcast a few years back about Moira Queen confessing to a conspiracy to destroy the Glades, and the man-made earth quake that followed just hours later. 

If what she read was true then Oliver stopped it from killing more people. Over 500 people died in the Glades back then, but according to the files Oliver kept on his computer it should’ve been many more. The files revealed a conspiracy that was so intricate and far reaching that she had no clue how Oliver Queen ever managed to put the puzzle pieces together.

Felicity didn’t like to toot her own horn, but at times like this she felt it was necessary. Even she wouldn’t have been able to put the pieces together, and IQ-wise she was in a pretty high percentile. High enough to impress people when she told them. She didn’t like to assume things about others, but often couldn’t help herself, yet Oliver Queen didn’t strike her as a genius. Smart? Most probably he had to qualify for that. Or he was an unbelievably stupid reckless person who by pure luck managed to not get caught. The latter seemed improbable. To be honest she didn’t want him to be stupid. She wanted him to be deliberate and calculated in what he was doing. Be in enough sound mind to qualify for being sentenced to three lifetimes in prison. Though, she didn’t want him to get caught. 

She didn’t have time to make contact with him then. Instead she planted a hidden program which would allow her to access his computer and talk to him when she was given the opportunity.   
It wouldn’t be easy, but she wanted to know who he was before she decided if he needed to be caught or not. If his cause was good then she could, maybe, find a way to justify the means.

Old Felicity would never have compromised on this, that she knew. Old Felicity would’ve sworn on the goodness of people. She still did, in a way, which was why she gave Oliver Queen the benefit of the doubt. Why she believed in what he was attempting. But, this Felicity, the older and more experienced woman who worked alongside the FBI had seen too much to believe in that untainted goodness. Some people were just evil. Not for a reason, but just because they could. Some reasons were too twisted, exploited, to have any believability. 

Yet Oliver Queen sparked hope inside of her. Hope that he was someone who could do what she couldn’t do. Not as an hacktivist, not with the FBI. He could be able to make an real difference. 

Over the next couple of weeks she kept tabs on him. His trails grew cold and the FBI for the most part lost interest in finding who the Hood was. The US senator was alive, and there was nothing that suggested that there would be a new attack on him in D.C. The Hood’s reach was within the Starling City limits, and until he expanded the FBI couldn’t do much. 

A new case landed on her desk, and then another. Their attention span was short, and there wasn’t much about the Hood any one of them had added to their memory. 

That could’ve made Felicity feel safe in contacting him, but she was still apprehensive. She started watching the news again, because googling him would seem suspicious. Brian loved to have a companion on the couch and would spend the better part of the evenings talking about the Match dot com girl he was dating. Felicity was not the girl to ask for relationship advice since the only one she’d ever had ended with her faking her own death. Yet, Brian asked. Apparently it had been a bad idea to suggest that he should message Maria back she noted. Let’s not do it again, she thought to herself.

Five weeks after she discovered who the Hood was everyone were distracted. Brian was agonizing over if he should take the next step with Maria, Duddy had a fight with his wife that had reached D-bomb levels (his wife had dropped the world ”divorce”, he had explained later on). Spielberg? Felicity felt the most bad for her. Spielberg’s mother was in the hospital with a bad case of sepsis caused by kidney stones. 

It did, however, give her an in. 

With the virus already planted in his computer it was only a couple of keystrokes away and she was in. 

>> Phantom: Hello

She sent it before she could reconsider. The white text was bold against the black background. She knew that he was on the computer because it had registered keystrokes just a couple of moments ago. From what she could tell he was looking for the current location of the real-estate owner Ruben Cooper with little luck. 

Felicity watched the blinking cursor, but nothing happened. Maybe he needed a push, she thought.

>>Phantom: Ruben Cooper’s current location based on current phone activity is 365 Ridge Street. 

The cursor blinked for a few long seconds before the response came.

>> Anonymous:47 How do I know if I can trust you?  
Good question, she thought, and tapped the keyboard lightly without writing anything. If someone had fed her a location to find a criminal this way she would’ve been suspicious too. The feds would’ve sent out someone to stake out the place before going in. Oliver Queen would not have that luxury.

>> Phantom: You don’t. 

>> Phantom: I still don’t know if I should trust you. 

Felicity knew that the information she had given him would lead to another man’s death if he accepted it. Already she was in too deep with this man, but though she knew that tonight she would lie awake and let the guilt gnaw at her heart and rot her lungs, she did in some strange way trust him. It was inexplicable and illogical, but she trusted his judgment. 

>>Phantom: He will be there. It will prove why you should trust me. 

>>Anonymous47: What do you want in return?

>>Phantom: Don’t kill him. If you don’t kill him I will help you. The FBI is looking for you.

>>Anonymous47: You’re FBI?

Smart boy, she thought. She was unable to hide the smile from her face.

>>Phantom: Sort of.

>>Anonymous47: that’s how you hacked my computer?  >>Phantom: they helped, in a way. 

>>Anonymous47: why?

>>Phantom: Why what?

>>Anonymous47: why help me?

She watched the screen, reading the question over and over again. Five weeks had gone since she accessed his computer for the first time, and she still had not dared to be completely truthful to herself about it. He did something she admired, he had the possibility to make a difference. But was that truly all that motivated her to do this. The truth was that she wanted back some agency, some power to make her own choices in life and not follow directions. He was the only one that had given her opportunity to. 

>>Phantom: Why not?

>>Anonymous47: I don’t kill him and you help me?

>>Phantom: Yes

>>Anonymous47: Deal


End file.
